To Wed a Wicked Prince

by Jane Feather

  “I’m sorry,” she said, pulling his head down to hers. “But it was ticklish. Do you think Aunt Sophia ever did it like that?”

  Not with my father, Alex thought, the idea effectively dowsing his amusement once again. He raised his head and sat up.

  “I wonder how many lovers she had.” Livia stretched out on the rug, one hand resting languidly on his bare thigh. “She can’t have been a chaste spinster all her life. If I could summon the courage I’d ask Morecombe…or perhaps the twins. But they’re so reticent about the past. Of course, it was a different era. Thirty years ago…”

  “It certainly was.” Alex stood up quickly. “I can’t spend the entire afternoon dallying with you, Livia.” He began to put on his clothes.

  She sat up reluctantly. “What else must you do?”

  “I’m expecting some guests,” he said, bending to gather up the books. “Get dressed now.”

  Livia rose to her feet. There was a strange chill suddenly. She hadn’t done anything to offend him, she was certain of it. They’d just made love, however unorthodox the method, but in general such activity generated a wonderful sense of connection between them. But now he seemed to have distanced himself from her.

  “Is something wrong, Alex?” She scrambled into her clothes, uncaring how disheveled she might look.

  “No, of course not. How could there be?” He was on the ladder replacing the books on the topmost shelf.

  “You tell me,” she murmured sotto voce, fastening the buttons on her bodice.

  The door knocker sounded and Alex frowned. “My guests,” he said shortly. He came down the ladder. “My dear girl, you’re buttoned up all wrong.” He brushed aside her hands and swiftly fastened her gown. He ran his hands through her hair, trying to comb it into some semblance of tidiness. “Anyone looking at you would know exactly what you’ve been doing.”

  “You were doing it too,” she reminded him, thrusting her bare feet into her slippers, tucking her stockings into her hands. “I’m sorry if you’re embarrassed, Alex, I’ll go out through the garden and your guests will never see me.” She made no attempt to hide her annoyance. It wasn’t as if they weren’t husband and wife.

  “That might be for the best,” he said, moving to the door to unlock it. “I don’t think anyone should see you holding your stockings in that shameless fashion.” A hint of his customary warmth had returned to his eyes and his voice, but Livia was not reassured.

  She shook her head and hurried to the French doors that opened onto the garden. “Never fear, I’m going now. Enjoy your guests.” Before he could say anything she opened the doors and slipped out into the frigid afternoon.

  Alex took half a step in her direction and then turned back as Boris knocked at the door and came in. “Visitors, Your Highness. Duke Sperskov—”

  “Yes, yes,” Alex said more brusquely than he intended. “I was expecting them.” He moved past Boris, extending his hand. “Come in, gentlemen.”

  Livia reentered the house through the kitchen and went up to her bedchamber. She was troubled. Every now and again in the two months they had been in London this strange thing happened to Alex, his mood would shatter and he would withdraw. She shrugged it off much of the time, but this afternoon was the first time it had happened at such a moment of intimacy.

  Did it have anything to do with the visitors he was expecting? For some reason she was never invited to the library when he had visitors. Even though she was slightly acquainted with Duke Nicolai Sperskov and Count Fedorovsky after their meeting at the Bonhams’ all those months ago, Alex never included her in their visits. If she happened to pass them in the hall, they always greeted her with impeccable courtesy, just as they did if they met at a social event, but that was as far as it went. And after the one occasion when she had disturbed Alex with the rough-looking Russian, whose name she couldn’t now remember, even when she was sure he was alone in the library, she always knocked and waited for his permission to enter.

  Presumably, keeping wives separate from their husbands’ friends was another strange Russian custom. But it only seemed to apply to his Russian friends. He was a very different man with the English and the French royalist émigrés who had fled to England after the revolution. A charming and attentive husband, an impeccable host, and an equally delightful guest.

  All in all, her husband was something of a puzzle, Livia decided. And she was in no mood to sit at home and brood on the puzzle. She would visit Nell and Ellie in Mount Street. They’d be highly amused at this latest evidence of Sophia Lacey’s proclivities.

  She rang for Ethel and then went to the armoire to select an afternoon gown. “Ethel, would you run down and ask Morecombe to summon the barouche for me?” she said as the maid came in. “Jemmy can drive me to Mount Street.” She laid a gown of striped muslin on the bed and unbuttoned the sadly mistreated dress she was wearing.

  Jemmy jumped down from the box of the barouche as Livia came out of the house. The dogs, who were sitting on the box proud as peacocks, their feathery tails fluffed, ears pricked, let loose a crescendo of excited barks when they saw her.

  “Yes…yes, I’m delighted to see you too,” she said, stroking their heads as Jemmy held the carriage door for her.

  “Where to, m’lady?”

  “Mount Street, please.” She climbed in and Tristan and Isolde clambered into the back to sit beside her, tails wagging, tongues hanging out. “How are you managing with the dogs, Jemmy?”

  “Oh, we gets along very well, ma’am,” he said, solicitously arranging the lap robe over her knees. “I like the company, if truth be told.”

  Well, that at least had been a potential problem easily resolved, Livia thought. Alex seemed willing to tolerate them if they weren’t permanently underfoot.

  Her friends were in Cornelia’s sitting room with their children when Livia arrived in Mount Street, the dogs running in front of her. They were as at home here as in Cavendish Square, and the children adored them.

  “Liv, what a lovely surprise.” Cornelia embraced her warmly. “We’re having tea.”

  “Lovely,” Livia said, kissing Aurelia. She greeted the children, but they were too busy playing with the dogs to respond with more than a monosyllable.

  She cast aside her muff and shrugged out of the fur-trimmed spencer, tossing it over an ottoman. “So, how have you both been?” She sank into the corner of a chintz sofa and with an appreciative smile took the cup Cornelia offered.

  “Well enough. What of you, Princess Prokov?” Aurelia regarded her with a quizzical smile.

  “Oh, well enough,” she responded carelessly, taking a macaroon from the plate of sweet biscuits.

  “You still have a very satisfied glow about you,” Cornelia observed with amusement. “A little love in the afternoon, perhaps? I do believe I’m jealous.” She heaved a mock sigh. “Ah, the first flush of love, there’s nothing like it for the complexion.”

  “And I suppose that’s a thing of the past for you?” Livia retorted, not troubling to deny her friend’s accurate statement.

  “Well, I’ve been married for almost a year now, and you know it’s really not fashionable to live in one’s husband’s pocket,” Cornelia said solemnly. “The gloss does wear off eventually.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” Aurelia said, laughing. “You and Harry are as head over heels in love as you ever were, and you’re so smug about it, Nell, don’t deny it.”

  “I won’t,” Cornelia said with a grin.

  “Well, there’s little fear that I’ll be living in my husband’s pocket,” Livia said, dipping her macaroon in her tea.

  Her friends looked at her sharply. “Is something the matter, Liv?” Aurelia asked.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s just that I’m having to learn Russian ways. Russian men do seem to expect to rule the roost. In fact Alex told me so himself, although he was making a joke of it…or at least, I think…I hope…he was,” she added.

  “You didn’t mind when he managed things before yo
u married him,” Aurelia said, a worried frown creasing her brow. “Is this different?”

  “A little,” Livia conceded. She hadn’t intended to be having this discussion, but she should have known she would end up confiding in her friends. “Before, it was amusing and rather exciting, the way he swept obstacles from his path, doing exactly what he wanted and somehow persuading everyone else, me in particular, that it was what they wanted too. I liked it then, only now…”

  She chewed her lip. “It’s one thing to be swept off your feet in the game of courtship, quite another to feel that your wishes have to come second simply because it’s a husband’s prerogative to take precedence.”

  Cornelia’s frown was a fair replica of Aurelia’s. “Alex doesn’t bully you?”

  “No…no, of course not,” Livia denied vehemently. “He’s charming and funny and gentle, but just adamant about certain things. It’s as if he couldn’t imagine doing anything differently from the way it’s always been done in his experience.”

  “Well, he does come from a different culture,” Aurelia said. “It’s inevitable that his experience would be different from yours. Is he willing to compromise?”

  “Up to a point,” Livia said, feeling suddenly disloyal. “It’s nothing serious, really it isn’t. I was just a little put out this afternoon.”

  She set down her teacup, intending to close the conversation, but found herself confiding the other thing that puzzled her. “It’s odd, but he never invites me to join them when his Russian friends come to visit. I meet them at other social events, just to bow to anyway, so it would seem natural that he would include me, even briefly, when they come to the house. But he never does. Why would that be?”

  “Perhaps they only speak in Russian,” Aurelia suggested. “Perhaps it’s a part of his world that he thinks you won’t understand. Men are just as bad as women when it comes to closing ranks. Look at their clubs. I mean a woman daren’t even be seen in St. James’s Street.”

  “True enough.” Livia nodded. “Although I don’t think it has anything to do with language. He told me once that only peasants speak Russian, at court everyone speaks French or English. But you’re right. I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. It’s probably just like an extended port-and-brandy postdinner gathering, with the women safely out of earshot over the teacups.” There was some sense to such an explanation and it would have to satisfy her.

  “But you don’t have any regrets about this marriage?” Cornelia asked, leaning towards Livia anxiously.

  “No, none at all.” Livia shook her head vigorously. “I love being married to him. These are just little niggles, and I’m probably being childish letting them upset me.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  LIVIA LEFT SOON AFTER, GOING out into the frigid February dusk, hoping that Jemmy had remembered to warm up the brick again while he was waiting in the Mount Street kitchens. He had and she snuggled into the lap rug, settling her feet on the brick, the dogs on her lap for an added layer of warmth.

  Somehow, confiding in her friends hadn’t brought her the relief it should have done. She was still uneasy about something, and she was having difficulty putting it into words. It was something to do with the glimpses of a different Alex that she’d caught once or twice. A touch of flint that hardened his eyes into a diamond brightness; a feeling of ruthlessness, of determination about him quite at odds with the generally easygoing, genial public face of Prince Prokov, and totally at odds with the lover whose slightest touch made her blood sing.

  But then, as she was always telling herself, she had a lot to learn about the man who was her husband. So why didn’t that realization ease her vague perturbation? Did it have something to do with the formless inkling that she had somehow been the object of that ruthless determination?

  Had that relentless pursuit and courtship been stimulated by something other than the headlong tumble into lust and love that she’d believed in? The unthinking passion that had swept her along with it on a glorious tide of emotional turmoil?

  It was ridiculous to entertain these doubts about her husband, ridiculous and disloyal, Livia told herself as the carriage turned into Cavendish Square. She had no evidence of deception. He had never treated her with anything but loving tenderness. And she was in the mood for a little of that now, she decided firmly.

  She stepped out of the barouche and went into the house, hoping that Alex had not gone out or if he was in, was no longer with his friends. The library door stood open but the room was empty. “Has Prince Prokov gone out, Boris?”

  “I don’t believe so, Princess.” The majordomo spoke tonelessly.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Above stairs, I believe, my lady.” He didn’t meet her eye, speaking to some point over her head, but Livia had long decided she wasn’t going to attempt to conciliate him, so she thanked him pleasantly and headed for the stairs.

  Perhaps Alex was dressing for the evening. She couldn’t remember his saying anything about going out for the evening, but his plans could have changed after his afternoon with his compatriots.

  She went up to her own bedchamber and stopped on the threshold in surprise. Alex in a brocade robe was lounging on her bed, ankles crossed, hands behind his head, a picture of relaxation.

  “Ah, there you are, madam wife,” he said somewhat plaintively. “I’ve been waiting for you for hours.” A lazy smile curved his mouth and his blue gaze was positively lascivious as it drifted over her. “I had it in mind to further the education that we began this afternoon, but when I came hot foot in search of you, you weren’t anywhere to be found.” His tone was mock plaintive, but his gaze burned with a quite different emotion.

  Livia’s body responded as it always did to the sensual promise in his eyes. She unpinned her hat, trying to make her movements tantalizingly slow. “I was in Mount Street,” she said, carefully laying her hat on the dresser before unbuttoning her pelisse.

  “I know,” he said. He crooked a finger at her in invitation. “Come here, wife of mine.”

  Livia pursed her lips, as if she needed to think about whether she would or not. She remained standing at the dresser, regarding him with narrowed eyes.

  “Must I come and fetch you?” Alex swung himself off the bed and took a purposeful step towards her. Livia gave a feigned squeal of fright and darted behind a chair.

  His eyes gleamed. “Ah, so that’s the way it’s to be, is it?” He lunged for her and she pushed the chair towards him, slowing him down as she dived behind the daybed. She watched him warily, her eyes dancing with mischief.

  Alex set the chair straight again and surveyed her thoughtfully. Her cheeks were pink, her gray eyes aglow with anticipatory excitement. He took a step towards her and she grabbed a cushion from the daybed and tossed it at him. He caught it with one hand and threw it aside.

  Livia backed away and, laughing, he stalked her around the room, effortlessly catching the series of missiles she threw at him to impede his progress. There was nowhere really for her to go, but the game made her blood run hot and swift, and her pulses race. She tried to sidestep and found herself backed into a corner.

  “Now where are you going?” he teased, putting his hands on the wall on either side of her.

  Livia didn’t answer. She ducked suddenly beneath his arm, surprising him, and nearly made it to freedom, but he moved swiftly, catching her around the waist, swinging her against him. He held her tightly, one hand pushing up her chin. “Got you,” he declared with satisfaction.

  “So it would seem,” Livia agreed, catching her breath, gazing up at him.

  “I have a great need for you,” he said softly, running his free hand over the swell of her breasts, down to the curve of her hip.

  “Then you must win me, sir,” she said, her eyes narrowing as an idea came to her.

  “And how must I do that?” he inquired, more than willing to play her game. Livia was nothing if not playfully inventive when it came to lovemaking.

  �
�By playing chess with me,” she stated. “Russians are expert at the game, but so, I should tell you, am I. I have been wanting to play with you since we first met, but somehow the opportunity never arose.”

  Alex looked a little taken aback. “Must we…right at this moment?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly, reaching up to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Trust me, you will enjoy it.”

  He took her face between his hands and kissed her hard, his tongue driving deep into her mouth in a statement of clear possession. Then he released her. “That’s a promise,” he said softly, “to be redeemed very soon.”

  Livia grinned. “I’ll make sure that it is, my prince.” She went across the room to the secretaire and dropped the leather desktop. She drew out a chessboard and a box. “Now, where shall we set it up?…Here, I think.” She put the heavy board on a low table in front of the fire. “If you win, then I will be your slave for the evening…on the other hand, should I happen to prevail…” Her gaze sparked sensual mischief.

  He pulled at his chin, appearing to consider the offer, and the atmosphere grew taut with anticipation. “An interesting proposition,” he said finally. “And not one any self-respecting Russian could refuse. Set it up, madam wife.”

  An hour later he was beginning to wonder quite what he’d let himself in for. He surveyed his side of the board. Something of a wreck, really. The ranks of his lost pieces far exceeded those remaining on the board. He considered himself to be a more than passable player, but Livia played like a demon.

  “Just where did you learn to play like this?” he inquired, watching her as she considered her next move.

  “My father taught me,” she told him. “The chessboard is his metaphor for life.” She looked up with a quick smile. “Always look before you leap, and always consider the consequences of the consequences of your actions.” Her hand hovered over her bishop.

  “He was a mathematician at university, a senior wrangler at Cambridge before he turned to theology. He used chess as a means of relaxation from mathematical calculations,” she expanded, moving her bishop to Queen Four. “Check.”